It's Hard to Forget
by Steelfeathers
Summary: Slightly AU: The infamous Rattrap, once believed to be dead, has returned. And while visions of impending evil plague a girl who hates transformers, a new destiny that no one could ever expect is approaching her! CHAPTER 8 UP! Sorry it took so long!
1. wanderings

A young girl wandered aimlessly through the darkened city streets, the snow coming fast and heavy. She had been out for hours, simply going wherever her feet happened to take her, anywhere but "home". Or rather, what had been her home, but was now reduced to a charred city block, twisted and marred beyond recognition by a blast from an ion cannon. And not just any ion cannon, but the ion cannon of that infamous Optimus Prime; the wonderful, heroic _protector_ of the galaxy, and ironically, the destroyer of it as well.

She looked up at the dark, pitiless sky, wanting to scream but unable to. It was him and all the other robot invaders that had come to her planet who were destroying it. They had taken control simply because of the fact that they could do as they wished whether or not they were given permission to do so by the UN. Oh no, they didn't do anything they wanted _publicly_ of course; they were always caring and respectful when in the view of a camera, calling a human ambassador one tenth their height and one thousandth their age 'sir'. They took control secretly, cajoling their way through the US government to build a city-sized base right on top of her old home (forcing her family to move) that was covered from end to end in dooms-day weapons for crying out loud!

And then, just when her single mom finds a decent house for them, it's demolished by that Mega-scum character when he took the ion cannon from Prime. And along with it, her mom, older sister and unborn brother…

A cry of utter despair tore from her throat and she beat her bare hands against the alley wall until blood mingled with the snow. She sank to the filthy ground, cradling her bruised hands against her chest, shaking both with cold and the poignant sobs that racked her thin body. Her face was screwed up with the agony of her heart being torn apart, trying not to think, but unable to do otherwise.

It was their fault. The Transformers did this to Earth. To her family. To her. And she hated them all.

After a while her sobs quieted, and she sat slumped against the wall, trembling with cold and fear. What would happen to her now? Where was she supposed to go? If she went to a shelter, they would surely put her either in an orphanage or in foster care, and she distinctly remembered the awful things that the psychos there did to her. The scar running from her forehead, across her nose and over her check was a painful reminder of the time she was put into foster care when her father was in jail for beating her mother, and her mother was in the hospital because of it.

If it wasn't for Jena, her older sister, she might not have made it out alive. Another cry escaped her at the sudden sharp thrust of her sister's face in her mind. Jena was always so kind and loving towards her. And she was gone, killed in a mindless war that had continued for millions of years.

By now she was so cold that her whole body was numb. She had stopped shaking, but all of the energy had been sucked from her body by the cold, and she couldn't get up. Her vision started to blur, and everything seemed to be going so slowly. It was still snowing, and somehow she distantly realized that she was sitting deep in bank of snow that had built up on her. It was one of Oregon's massive blizzards, and at the rate the snow was falling, she would soon be buried beneath a white blanket.

_Good…. Then I'll be with Jena and Mom and my baby brother…. And there'll be no more blasted robots…._

The last thing she remembered seeing was a large, steel plated face looming over her, a look of concern evident on its face. Its "lips" moved, but she couldn't hear anything it said. Then she felt herself lifted from the ground by something surprisingly warm, and all faded away.

ShadowStriker nervously paced the enormous hall in front of the medical ward, the small "wings" on the sides of his head flapping in adgitation. The female he's found out on patrol didn't look to be in such good shape. He knew that it was dangerous for humans to stay out when it was that cold for too long, especially when she was only wearing a T-shirt and jeans. He assumed that she probably hadn't planning one being out for long in that attire.

At that moment First Aid emerged, catching the pacing black mech in mid-stride.

"Well? How is she?" he asked before the medical bot could open its mouth.

"Calm down, ShadowStriker. She'll live, but I'm curious to know what she was doing out in that blizzard… Why did you bring her here? Why not to Fort Max where she could be attended by human doctors?"

"It was too far, and she was already unconscious. Besides, I don't trust the butchery practices the humans call 'medicine'." ShadowStriker snapped. "And you never answered my first question- What is the female's condition?"

First Aid sighed. Shadowstriker, who was a new recruit fresh from Cybertron, wasn't quiet adjusted to calling humans 'he' or 'she' instead of the technical identification of 'male' and 'female'. First Aid was just glad no humans were in ear shot. Human women especially took insult from the label 'a female'.

"Moderate hypothermia, and some severe frost bite; a large piece had to be removed her left ear, but I reconstructed it with synthetic skin. Also, her hands were somehow damaged, and they had to be bandaged. Other than that, the only thing out of the ordinary is mild malnutrition."

ShadowStriker sighed with relief. When he had seem the human in the alley, completely unresponsive to him, he had assumed the worst.

"Is she awake?"

"No, I've put her in stasis so she can recover. I had to balance her body chemistry to counter-act the hypothermia." The red and white robot explained. ShadowStriker nodded in defeat, his heart going out to the young human. Just seeing her so helpless in the alley had moved him, and her presence had somehow carved out a place in his spark.

"Can I see her?"

First aid looked at him questioningly. The completely black mech usually avoided contact with humans, even Sparkplug and Buster. He wasn't rude or course with them; he was simply a loner, and preferred not to be around them. So, his sudden desire to stay with the young girl, though not unusual for most of the other bots at the Ark, was out of the ordinary.

"I don't see why not…" He replied slowly.

ShadowStriker quickly passed First Aid and went through the sliding doors that opened at his approach into the Med-bay.

There, on the large table, was the pale, thin human with raven black hair, her eyes closed peacefully. She was made to look so much more vulnerable by the large machinery around her. A small metal headband was clamped to her forehead, keeping her in the coma-like state known to Transformers as stasis. Wires ran from it and attached to the large machines in the med bay which currently displayed heart and breathing rate, as well as brain activity.

Unlike in human hospitals, there was nothing else attached to her, though judging from the equipment that First Aid had out, that had not been the case a few minutes ago when the head medic had 'balanced her body chemistry'.

ShadowStriker just stared at her prone form, completely transfixed, and equally unaware that humans found staring rude. He was relieve to see that her lips were pink again; he didn't know that humans lips could be blue like that.

First Aid came up from behind him.

"You know, Optimus is not going to be happy about you bringing her here." He said quietly.

"And you agree with him?" There was an accusing, angry note in ShadowStrikers' voice.

"No." First aid answered after a moment. "I probably would have done the same thing, whether she wanted to come or not." He said very softly.

ShadowStriker gave him a disbelieving look. A grin flickered over the medics face.

"I've… seen human medicine in affect, and I don't much like it either. Besides, in her condition, I'm the only one I would trust to heal her." The black mech grinned at his friend.

"You always did have an ego the size of your laser scalpel." The medic grinned back.

"I know."

"Know what?" Came a deep voice from the entrance, and both froze as though caught with their hands in a cookie jar. ShadowStriker turned, and there, standing large and imposing in the doorway, was Optimus Prime

Busted.


	2. awakening

1I take this story's plot from the comics, but the characterizations are of my own creation.

ShadowStriker's mine too.

Sorry for those of you who are heart-set on the comics, but I tend to bend the plot to my own whims.

REVIEW PLEASE! OR NO MORE STORY!

"Look commander, I can explain..." said ShadowStriker, stepping forward. Optimus

sidestepped around him to see what he was attempting to conceal behind his body.

"Explain wh-" He stopped mid thought as he caught sight of the comatose girl. In a flash, he latched on to the smaller bot's armor and dragged him out into the hall and out of ear shot of First Aid.

"What is a human doing in the medical ward? I assume you had something to do with it."

"Uh, yes sir. I found her out on patrol; she had fallen unconscious in the snow. With the blizzard coming, I thought it would be the best choice to bring her here."

Optimus sighed inwardly and relaxed his grip on the black mech. It wasn't that big of a deal, really. He had just overloaded his circuits recently trying to push the treaty with the UN to establish a permanent Transformer presence on earth. None of the human leaders could seem to agree with each other on anything!

"It's alright, ShadowStriker. A few months ago I would have done the same thing. But we can't afford to have another paparazzi fiasco right now; that set back our efforts to sign a treaty with the world leaders by far too long."

The black mech stared downcast at the floor.

"I- apologize. I know it was an unauthorized action, but I just felt..."

"Helpless?" Optimus supplied. ShadowStriker lifter his gaze to see his leader's optics turn a golden amber in deep thought.

"I know the feeling. We could do so much to help the humans, but they seem insistent on fighting us every step of the way."

The commanding autobot's optics returned to their normal light yellow color, and he turned his inward reflection back to the problem at hand.

"When she wakes up, get her last name and have Jazz contact her parents to let them know where she is. I have a feeling no one is going to be going anywhere for a few days with the snow pile up outside."ShadowStriker shifted his weight from foot to foot, looking uncomfortable.

"Sir, are the atmospheric conditions- weather I mean (what a strange concept!)- on this planet always so extreme?"

His leaders optics flared white with internal laughter.

"Only in Oregon, ShadowStriker. Only in Oregon."

She felt strange. It was as though she was being extricated from a wonderfully warm and contented dream, being pulled away to a world of bright light, loud sounds and cold metal.

Metal? That was strange... Where was she?

Suddenly in a terrifying flash of memory she remembered coming onto her street on her bike to the acrid smell of burning plastic. Everything was in ruins; no buildings were left standing. The dead and dying were strewn across the ground. Some looked up at her with charred, empty eye sockets, some pleaded to her for help, leaving smears of crimson blood behind them, and still others were nothing more than pieces. And towering over it all was the devil incarnate himself- Optimus prime- locked in a death match with Megatron over his Ion cannon.

The thing- that robot- turned its eyes on to her; looked at her with the face that held so much power, the end to... everything. Her everything. Her life. Her soul. His face was burned into her memory as the last thing she would ever see.

In the last moment her soul cried out to God as it lowered its cannon at her, not in a prayer or even a word, but in sheer raw terror and despair. Somehow in that instant before it pulled the trigger her whole life flashed before her eyes, as well as everything she hadn't gotten to do yet, in a wordless, final cry of desperation.

Then, it fired. Again. And again. And Again. And somehow it wasn't her that was hit, but her town, her family. Again and again and again, over and over in her mind. She waited to her Jesus' voice, saying 'Come', but everything was silent. Suddenly she realized that she wasn't seeing what had happened to her, but what her mind imagined must have happened to her family.

With that realization she was floating again, wondering where she should be. Someplace snowy...

The alley! That was it. The last thing she remembered was that someone had found her.

_One of them_.

Her eyes flickered open, fighting the feeling of weight that seemed to hold them closed. The light she had felt before was right above her, bright and artificial. Slowly her hearing came back to her, and she realized that there were voices talking around her, people who were out of her line of vision.

She tried to move her head, but something kept her from doing so, and she realized that there was something holding it in place. Ice flooded the pit of her stomach, and she lifted an arm to bat away whatever it was, only it didn't move, but remained clamped to her forehead.

"Whoa, hold on there. Let me get that." Came a voice from somewhere behind her. The thing, whatever it was, was carefully lifted away from her head, and newly free from her imprisonment, she tried to twist around to see who was behind her, but collapsed from the initial effort.

"You're certainly very energetic. You must be a handful for your parents." The voice was gentle and soothing, but the words only made her feel a sharp pang on sadness. She wanted to say that her parents were dead, but her mouth seemed to be full of cotton, smothering the words. To say it made it too final, too irreversible. A part of her heart still held out hope that her family would somehow magically reappear.

Suddenly a face came into view. A _metal_ face.

"Hey there, sleeping beauty!" The voice that came from it was different from the one before, but somehow she knew that they were both robots.

"Ngg mu gaah nu..." She muttered incoherently (though it was a rather insulting obscenity in her own ears) and made a valiant effort to get up. A large hand spoiled her efforts though when in gently pushed her back down with only two fingers.

"Take it easy now; you just came out of stasis, and it may take a few moments for the world to realign itself." The first voice came into view, this one a large red and white robot with the shape of a red cross on its chest.

After a few false starts, she managed to find her tongue.

"Let me go..." She said weakly, not sure that they would even be able to hear her. But their sensitive audios did.

"Come again, Miss?" Said the black and white robot with a visor covering its eyes. Slowly she worked up the energy for a burst of speech, and managed to choke out in barely above a whisper:

"Release me, Murderer!"

The two robots looked thoroughly confused, and glanced at each other before the red and white one opened its mouth to say something.

Suddenly a massive explosion rocked the room, chocking off whatever it was about to say. They both wheeled around to face the door, weapons springing into their hands from sub-space pockets, readying themselves for what they thought was a Decepticon invasion.

She never saw it coming. A second explosion rattled her teeth, freezing her and leaving her completely unable to move as suddenly the ceiling above her gave way.


	3. Suspisions

1Thanks to GalacticPrime for motivation to write this chapter!

Now,

Onward and upward with the show!

She tried to scream, but her voice caught in her throat. Too fast, it was all happening to fast. The debris hurtled down towards her at an incredible speed, and she briefly thought that if death decided to fall towards her out of the sky, it would have wanted to take its time making an entrance.

There was a blur of something black, like a dark shadow flittering over to her. She pulled her arms up over her head in a feeble attempt to ward off the ton of falling metal as well as the dark shadow, but it had other plans as it covered her, shielding her vulnerable body from impending doom. Then, with a deafening crash, the debris slammed into the thing above her, causing it to grunt, then sliding off of its sides like water when it shifted after a moment or two.

She realized then that her savior was not a shadow, but in fact a large, black robot. It groaned slightly, lifting itself from it place directly over her so it could look down at her face from a more comfortable angle.

"Are you alright?" It asked. Its voice was deep, and it reminded her of the gentle rocking motion of the calm sea. It "lips"- or metal plates that could be confused for lips- moved in time with the words, but she saw that it had no tongue or human like teeth. Obviously somewhere in its "mouth" was a vocalizer. What captivated her though were its eyes. They were angular, in an almost stylized equivalent of an almond shaped human eye, shining a light sky blue. It-he- was so close to her that she could actually see through the transparent glass to the finely tuned mechanisms beneath, whirling an shifting serenely as he looked at her, the camera like "pupil" in the very center flicking back and forth, glowing peacefully like two blue candles.

For a moment she was too captivated to answer. She had never stopped to actually _look_ at one of the robots before, beyond a quick glance to see if it was aiming a weapon at her.

"Female, can you hear me?"

That did it. The simple, impersonal word brought her out of her contemplative mood, and her mind closed down again on any thought of these creatures being anything other than programmed killing machines.

"Yes, I can here you quite clearly, robot." She growled. It looked at her curiously, or as much so as its immobile face could express. She suddenly realized why this one looked familiar. It was the same face she had seen before blacking out in the alley.

Opening her mouth to say something, she was interrupted once again when an alarm, out of no where started blaring at an unbearable volume. She clapped her hands to her ears with a weak cry, her brains seeming to be jarred around in her head.

"Will someone shut that thing up!" Someone else in the room yelled, voicing what she desperately wanted to.

"Teletron 1, turn that thing off will you!" Another yelled. It stopped almost immediately, but the silence it left behind rung just as loudly as when the alarm was still wailing.

"Explosive devices detected within the confines of the ship. Evacuation is suggested." Came a cool, computerized voice from the air.

"Gee, thank's for the heads up..." A third muttered venomously.

"Your welcome." The computer voice (Teletron 1 thingy, she assumed) responded pleasantly.

Looking over its shoulder at something she couldn't see, her two time rescuer pulled away from her, and she immediately sat up. Then, she noticed something odd.

"Teletron 1, contact Optimus Prime. Tell him we have a sit-" It started, before she let loose a loud shriek, causing the black bot to visibly flinch.

"What?" It asked her. She quickly crawled back away from it, scattering some debris off of the large table.

"DUH! I'm naked!" She huddled herself together, trying her very best to cover all relative areas, flushing darkly with embarrassment. The black robot appeared confused.

"It that a problem?" It asked, genuinely unknowing. She looked about ready to shout at the top of her lungs when the black and white robot from before interrupted on her behalf.

"Uh, Buster, could you possibly scrounge up something for our guest to wear before she turns homicidal?" She peaked around the edge of the table, and froze at the sight she saw.

A boy, a _human _boy, was standing not too far off, and when he looked up and saw her, he promptly turned beet red to his hair line and glanced away.

"Uh, sure..." And at a fast clip to anywhere but there, scurried away. Looking at the boy's retreating back, then turning to look at her, all optics focused on the embarrassed girl. She shivered, not with cold but with fear, as it was relatively warm in the enormous room. Though, suddenly (Thank God!) their attention was diverted when there was a short crackle of static, and then a voice was heard over the PA system, filling the room.

Prime here. What's going on, ShadowStriker? Teletron 1 has informed me that there was some sort of explosion near med-bay.

_Med-bay, so that's where I am... _She thought.

"Yes sir. We're not quite sure yet what happened, but Hound and Bumblebee are already on their way to check it out."

_Wait, since when were those to sent off? I didn't hear it tell anyone... It must be some type of internal comm-link..._

The disembodied voice- now known to belong to the leader of the Autobots, Optimus Prime- returned.

Were their any injuries?

"None, commander."

Good. I'll join up with you there momentarily. Over and out.

A moment later, Buster returned with some clothes in a bundle under his arm, and with a quick excuse of needing to go help Bumblebeeimmediately left, his face still bearing the complexion of a cherry.

The bundle was handed up to her, and while they had their backs to her, talking amongst themselves about who knows what, she quickly slipped into the pair of black cargo jeans and a baggy, much too big purple Raven's sweatshirt. Surprisingly though, the jeans were very comfortable and fit reasonable well, other than being boy jeans. And though she sincerely hoped they were clean, she suspected that they were.


	4. A new plan

1A moment later, the doors slid apart, disgorging the imposing Optimus Prime into the med-bay.

Though until now she had remained relatively calm in the presence of these robots, her blood boiled at the mere sight of him, enraged and terrified, amazed and disabused at the same time.

She hated him. She hated him for killing her parents, for bringing their war to her planet, but at the same time she couldn't tear her gaze away from him. It was awe-inspiring in the sense that this robot was marked. Marked in her mind by blood. It might have been any other being in that room that bore her family's blood, and it would still arouse the same reaction in her, the immediate recognition of them and what they had done. Somehow, just the mere sight of it-him- was akin to what a psychic might feel upon sighting the hidden serial killer within the mild-mannered business man. Harmless on the outside, but invisibly Marked on the inside. He was Marked, and she could see it. And it terrified her.

She slowly backed away on the table, her eyes never leaving his optics, looking for what inside of him could make him a killer. She couldn't see it, and it infuriated her. He looked so peacefully concerned with what had happened that she was dying to scream at him to show them his true self, so then everyone could know what she new, and would be able to recognize him as being Marked.

She didn't hear a word of what they discussed amongst themselves, though they said plenty, and didn't even register that two new robots had entered the room, giving Prime their report on what they could find of the bomb, though she didn't hear that either. All that mattered was Prime.

After a while, what she dreaded happened as he turned to her, asking her a question that was filled with so many level of meaning in her mind as she continued to back away on the table.

"Well, hello. Its nice to see you awake. What's your name?" It asked her amiably with lips hidden behind a faceplate.

_That's right, hide from me you b!_

Her voice sounded lame and squeaky in her own ears.

"F off..."

She backed away again, still on her hands and knees, but this time was met with nothing but air. She gasped as she slipped from the table.

_This is just not my day..._

Suddenly Prime darted forward and caught her carefully in the palm of his hand.

"Watch it, there's quite a fall there." He said gently, his optics flaring white with an inner smile. She was completely limp for a moment in shock, her thought trains wrecking into one another in her mind. She was in his hand. The same hand that held the gun that killed my parents.

"What's your name?" he asked again. Like being struck by lightning, a fiery will to live jolted her to her senses, and she struggled in his grasp, pushing against his enormous fingers in a silent demand to be put down.

"Why should I tell you?" She snarled. He carefully set her down, and she scrambled away from him.

"Easy; we just want to contact your parents and tell them that you're alright."

Ice filled her, numbing her from the inside out. The only part of her that moved with her heart, which screamed in pain with every beat. Even her breath had deserted her at his question.

"You could try to, if it would make you feel better, but they aren't there it give you an answer." She said when she had found her voice. And suddenly it hit her full force, bulling her over like a tidal wave. They were gone. Just gone. Never coming back.

A sob escaped her lips, and her face screwed up in the agony of her heart being rent in to. Her knees gave way, no longer able to support her, and she sunk to the floor, crying her heart out. And for once, she was completely unashamed of her tears.

For just a moment she brought herself under control to deliver her message, before completely breaking down again.

"My name is Raven Sigil, and you can't contact my parents because you killed them."

For a long time, she remained just like that, the towering 'bots looking at her in surprise and pity. Raven was glad of the chance she had just to cry for a good long while without interruption. If they didn't kill her now, they would send her off to a foster home again, and she needed to be strong to survive that again.

ShadowStriker's POV

I stared down at Raven's crumpled form, at a total loss of what to do. She was crying, and from what I knew of humans, they only cried under extreme emotional duress. What disturbed me most though was what she had said. I knew that there were human casualties- it was a war, and bystanders were often killed. Yet somehow, it had never really bothered me until now. The war didn't just affect the fifty or so that were killed a year, it affected the hundreds who knew them, who depended on them, like that young girl did. And every year, we gained those hundred or so as new enemies.

I couldn't figure out why I cared, but my spark couldn't stand the thought of having Raven as my enemy. I wanted her to be my friend. I knew that I didn't have many friends, and it had never really bothered me until now. But suddenly, more than anything, I wanted to help Raven, to go to her and comfort her. To find a friend in her.

Before I knew what I was doing I had knelt before her. She was so small compared to me, so helpless and fragile. I gently reached out my hand to her, but quickly pulled it back when she flinched away. After a moment, she started to calm down, and I slowly reached out to her again, but this time she didn't pull away from me. I rested my hand ever so lightly on her back, being suddenly able to feel every beat of her tiny heart and every shuddering breath she took.

To a Decepticon, I knew she was nothing more than cannon fodder. But now, more than ever, I knew that I wasn't meant to be a Decepticon- as I had been originally- for I felt only sympathy and caring towards the small human.

Keeping my touch on her back light and careful, I gently began to rub up and down her spine with one finger. It seemed to have the desired affect upon her. Slowly she calmed down and began to relax by degrees, no longer openingly sobbing. Tears still rolled down her face, but she was quieting down, opening taking an occasionally shuddering breath.

I continued to rub her back rhythmically until she had all but stopped crying, then carefully pulled my hand away.

Optimus' POV

I couldn't believe my audio sensors. Her- Raven's- parents were dead? Could it be possible that what she said was true, and that they were killed by one of our battles? If it was true, than our job just became a lot more difficult. Bumblebee had said that it was a home-made bomb that had gone off, one easily made by amateurs.

Anti-Transformer amateurs. Though in my sparks I felt that Raven probably had had nothing to do with it, I couldn't turn down the possibility, as she so obviously felt a degree of hate towards our kind for the death of her parents.

I sighed inwardly, knowing that Elita would have my hide if she knew what I was planning to do. An easy alibi for Raven would be that she had been unconscious the entire time she was on the Ark, and I knew it. I also knew that she didn't plant the bomb, but it was a viable excuse for keeping her at the Ark under Autobot "supervision" in an attempt to rule out her involvement by watching her like a hawk until another bomb went off, thus freeing her from the charge.

I sighed again, knowing that Elita would never buy that as being the real reason I wanted to keep Raven with us. Just seeing ShadowStriker with her was enough to convince me that it was the right decision. Besides, I felt the need to atone for my own sins, and I might just be able to do that through Raven.

Elita was going to weld me to the wall when she found out.


	5. Visions

1Raven's POV

I was packing again, not that I had had much stuff with me to begin with.

Buster had washed the ratty clothes I had come in just so that I could have a change of clothes for the time being, besides the jeans and sweatshirt that he loaned to me. Other than that, the only thing of value that I could take with me was my dagger. But- much to my supreme annoyance- it was nowhere to be found, and I didn't dare ask one of _them_ what they had done with it.

Actually though, the clothes were probably more important.

Glancing around to assure myself that there was no one to see me, I quickly stepped out of the jeans and swept the Raven's sweat shirt (how fitting) over my head, and finding no place to put the articles of clothing, simply dropped them to the steel floor. Once I was back in my own clothes, I thought better of it, and folded them first, and then put them neatly on the floor for Buster to find.

Now, to find my dagger.

I had to leave before anyone caught me. Though I still had no idea where I would go, to my haphazardly raging mind anyplace was better than being sent to a foster home, or even possibly being kept there as a slave.

And that's why I needed that dagger. It was my only viable means of self defense, despite the Hollywood produced fictions that a girl in high heeled boots could fight off six snarly thugs. In fact, that was so far from what actually happens that it made a snort of mirthless laughter escape me every time I thought about it.

What really happened was that the person would sneak up on you from behind, so quiet that you didn't know that they were there until there was a knife or a gun (or both) pressed up against the back of your neck. And then, no matter how high of a blackbelt you were (I was a 5th Dan) they were always so much more powerful than you were.

So with this dire need in mind, I left through the towering sliding door (if I had a pack, this is the point where I would have slung it over my shoulder) and went in search of Buster. I found him on his way to the rec room- or what I assumed was the rec room by the joyous shouting coming from inside.

"Hey, Raven!" He called to me, smilling, "There's an armwrestling tournament going on, want to c-" He was cut off mid-sylable as a pulled him away from the door, asking if he had seen a dagger.

"What? No, I haven't. Why, did ya loose one?" I sighed. Never mind.

"Look, I'm going to get the heck out of dodge while I still can; do you have 7.50 I could mooch off of you?" He looked at me blankly for a moment.

"Wha? Why?"

I shrugged awkwardly.

"For bus fair."

"No! I meant, why are you leaving?" At this point it was my turn to stare blankly at him, and I was dying to say _Duh_! really loudly and shake him back to his senses. Why did he _think _I was leaving? To get away from those blasted robots!

"Hey Buster, you comin' or what?" Someone called out from within the rec room. I panicked.

"You didn't see me." I whispered urgently to Buster before taking off as fast as possible while not making a sound.

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

Buster stared after Raven's retreating back for a moment, and decided it best to let someone else go after her. That was, after she discovered that she couldn't get out past the snow bank.

He went into the rec room to see Kup and springer busy testing their might against each other, joints and muscle cables groaning in protest. Cliffjumper bounded up to him.

"Care to place bets? The minimum is 30 but if you win, you'll get 50 inter-" The mech trailed off as Buster walked right past him.

"Hey Optimus, thought you might like to know that Raven is trying to pull a disappearing act." He grinned evilly here. "She hasn't found out yet that the entrances to the Ark are blocked with snow."

Shadowstriker, who was leaning against the wall not far away with his arms crossed, nearly fell down. "What? Why?" Prime appeared to be slightly calmer than Shadowstriker over this news, though inside his spark jolted within him in a strange combination of saddness and acceptance, disbelief and a surge of strong, protective feelings. He turned to ShadowStriker.

"Go find her and bring her to the communication center. I need to talk to her." ShadowStriker nodded fiercely and trotted out of the room. Buster turned back to Optimus.

"Optimus, Raven also mentioned something about a dagger. Do you have any idea what she was talking about?" Prime was thoughtful for a moment.

"If she had it on her person when she was brought in then more than likely Rachet has it somewhere. But what bothers me is why someone so young would need one..."

Buster shrugged. "I have a hunch that she is very, uh, street wise..." Prime looked away.

"That could make things much more difficult." Buster looked up at him questioningly. Prime sighed inwardly after a moment and decided to tell the boy about his plan- he would find out soon anyway. And besides, Buster might be useful in dealing with Raven in the future, seeing as though she clearly trusted a human much more than she did any of his men.

_Poor ShadowStriker_...

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ShadowStriker found Raven arguing with Teletron one, quite loudly too.

"What do you mean, 'I cannot open the door.'? Why the heck not?"

"The snow drifts outside are far too large. I cannot risk the snow entering the Ark when the doors are opened. I apologize, Raven." The cool, slightly female voice answered.

"Just hold up a sec! How do you know my name?"

ShadowStriker approached her from behind, and the small girl whirled around, a look of absolute horror on her face. "Aw, crud..." she muttered.

"Teletron one can hear and see most everything that happens on the Ark, except when instructed not to." Raven quickly backtracked away form the imposing black robot out of habit rather than design, as there was nowhere to go to.

"Great, I've been ratted out by Big Brother." She muttered under her breath. The robot smirked.

"Actually, it was Buster." She blanched.

"I'm going to kill him..." the robot started to laugh, but cut himself short.

"Prime wants you to come to the communications room. It's something important, I think."

"So?"

"So, I'm supposed to bring you."

"No." ShadowStriker was rather taken aback. When a superior gave an order, you had to follow it. At least in his experience anyway.

"I don't understand."

"Then let me spell it out for you." She snarled quietly. "I might not have been able to get out of here undetected, but I sure as heck aren't going to stick around for long. As soon as I can get out of here, I intend to. And that doesn't mean I have to listen to you either. I don't take orders from robots."

It was ShadowStriker's turn to get upset. Hadn't he saved her from almost certain death? Hadn't he brought her back for medical treatment? And this is how she thanked him!

But then he really looked at her, and what he saw made the idea instantly shatter, leaving him feeling ashamed of himself. Even if she was an ungrateful wretch, she was still a semi-helpless human who was- for the most part- at his mercy, which made him responsible for not abusing that power.

He closed his mind down to any emotions. They would just get in his way.

"Too bad. You're coming anyway." He bent down and gently scooped her up in his hand, cupping the other one over her. He felt her squirming in his grasp, but ignored it and made his way to the communications center.

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Buster and Prime were waiting in the vastly spralling communications room, Buster staring dumbfounded at the door still in mild shock after the revelation of Prime's plan. Optimus on the other hand stood calmly, almost completely emotionlessly with his hand on the large console. Then Shadowstriker, with a struggling Raven still in hand, entered the room and the silence was rudely shattered by her curses. Buster winced. What a mouth.

He looked up at Prime who stubbornly refused to meet his gaze, wondering if he could pull off the enormous (to him) task that he hand been assigned, wincing again as the thin girl tumbled to the floor out of the Black mech's hand.

Raven straightened up once she had been released, and realizing that she was outnumbered three to one and had no where to run to if she somehow DID get away, lazily brushed herself off and let her face assume a closed expression.

"You're probably wondering why I had you brought here, but I think I'll let detective Roberts explain it to you properly." Prime began when she glared up at him, his hand moving to press a button on the console. Instantly the screen lit up with the larger than life image of a balding man's head.

Detective Roberts pulled out a handkerchief and wiped at his nose for no other apparent reason than to look important. Raven saw his image as he began to talk, but she also saw something else too. Something that distracted her attention from what he was saying.

The way he had about him, the way his lips moved and his eyes scanned them all was...

She couldn't put her finger on it, but she instantly didn't like him for reasons she couldn't explain or even discribe.

"Miss., uh, Raven, you are under investigation for the suspected bombing of the Autobot's headquarters at the Ark." This last statement snapped her out of her trance.

"Wha?" She stared blankly at his image, not quite sure she had heard him right. Robert's continued on as if he hadn't heard her.

"Though it is a rather unorthadox request, the Autobots have volinteers to try to prove your innocence by placing you under house arrest... For the time being." and he smiled in a way that clearly said he was glad that he wasn't in her shoes.

But Raven couldn't process what he had said. She saw it again, flittering across his face like a ghost through a graveyard, his eyes pititless twin moons, his alabaster face like a skull, his teeth... like the teeth of a rat. He leered at her, and suddenly she could see it. Her vision ShIfTeD, and she could see that he was Marked as well. Not the face of a human, but the face of a Rat stared at her.

Prime, misreading her startled look as confusion, spoke up.

"What the Detective means is that you will be staying at the Ark for a few weeks so we can keep an eye on you. That way, the next time a bomb goes off, we'll know that you weren't behind it."

That snapped raven out of it.

"What! But it sounds like you don't believe that I really did it to begin with! And besides, how could I? I was unconcious."

"I never said I thought you to be innocent." Prime turned back to Roberts and thanked him, turning off the monitor.

Raven noticed that he didn't provide an explanation for the accusation that she planted the bomb while unconcious.

But somehow, that wasn't on the forefront of her mind. All she could think about was the Rat face.

"Don't trust him." She whispered quieting, staring trasnfixed at the darkened screen. Shadowstriker's sensative audios however picked up her voice.

"Who?" Rat. Dead. Teeth; nashing, knawing, biting. Eyes leering. And something else. Something that was going to happen. Rat's teeth made it happen.

She was gone from the room. All she could see was a door in a dark room, and beyond the door was a bright light that rattled the door on its hinges and twisted at the knobs. There were sliding plated of metal, dark and smooth, gliding over each other. They became the cogs of a clock, whirling, twisting clanking. Tick. Tick. Tick. And over it all were Rat's teeth, whispering, whispering awful things to her. The door was there again. The light behind it pulsed brightly, banging against the dark barrier, twisting at the knob, demanding...

She had to get away, but her feet stuck to the floor while her legs twisted. The lights were above her. The lights were in front of her and she was on the floor. Funny, she didn't remember falling...

Buster was over her, yelling to someone. His voice seemed so far away as if reaching her from across a wide canyon. There were whispers around her, inside her head.

_Gono' dehayd'ay. Na for ogh say'la'dya..._

_La' day..._

_La' day..._

_La' day..._

Everything went dark.

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Somewhere a light shone in the dark. A small hexagonal plate glowed softly, green light pulsing from it. Then suddenly it flared brightly, illuminating the two identical plates next to it. Light streaked between them, causing the other two to light up as well.

It was almost time.


	6. A trail of darkness

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The gently swirling snow fell softly over the vast spralling metropolis that was central city. The blizzard, mollified now from its ravenous state, retreated into the dark, lowhanging clouds above. The wind had ceased to howl around the building like a blind wraith; the snow had slackened off. Those who were stuck inside began to look out their second story window hopefully, wondering if this was the end of the worst blizzard in nearly a decade.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the giant snow crawlers began to make their way across the over head walkways, shoveling an endless avalanche of snow over the side onto the roads below where even larger street movers bulldozed waves of white before them to reveal black pavement beneath.

Then suddenly, the tranquility was shattered.

The large Galactic Federations building, the center off all off-world activities, seemed to rippled within itself. Then a horrendous crashing report cracked like a whip across the city, and the structure seemed to fold up into itself in the middle. A fireball exploded outward from the fourth floor, sending a wave of shattered glass and steel smashing into the surrounding buildings. Above the explosion the building seemed to be lifted up, only to come crashing back down onto itself with the awful sounds of shearing metal and shattering glass.

A cloud of dust a mile high appeared as the entire building came crashing down into a pile of rubble.

Sirens began to wail all over the city, but it was too late for anything to be done.

The invisible bombers had struck again.

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Voices. It was those blasted voices again, invading the solitude of her unconscious mind. If they had belonged to a tangible face, raven would have found much satisfaction in smashing it in.

She struggled to get away from the distant voices that were coming closer to her, to get away from the thing dragging her back into consciousness, but it was determined that she should re- enter the world of the living.

For the third time there was a face above her. An unfamiliar human face. A man's face.

His lips moved and she realized he was smiling at her. Raven also became aware that her own lips were moving, only she had no idea what exactly she was saying, except that she was saying a lot of it.

"Shh..." He whispered to her, putting a cool wet cloth on her head. For some reason her eyes itched and she had a mother of a headache. There was some thing important that she needed to tell him, but she couldn't remember what it was.

"What 'appened?" Raven muttered, her tongue feeling unusually thick.

"You fainted. From fatigue, I reckon- not to mention probably shock."

Shock? Her mind drew a blank, and she did her best to look puzzled.

"Yeah, you know, about the investigation and all."

Oh.

"Don't worry; I probably would have dun the same thing, iff-in it were me."

How comforting...

Then she remembered. The man had moved to re-wet the cloth, and she batted his hand away when he tried to put it back on his forehead, struggling to sit up against the confining restrains of bed-covers.

"No. That doesn't matter. Don't trust the Rat." She rushed out urgently, and the man pushed her back down.

"Slow down, Raven. I can't understand you when you talk so fast."

She took great gulps of air and let him put the cloth on her forehead, trying to straighten out her thoughts. Then she opened her mouth to tell him exactly what she had seen-

-And closed it again. No, he would think that she was crazy.

"Who are you?" She quickly changed gears.

"Spike WitWicky. I'm Buster's older brother."

It happened again. But clearer this time. She saw metal, and wires, and gears. They were under his skin, under his smiling face, all through out his body. He twisted before her, contorting into something... different.

And a word came into her mind.

"Headmaster..." She whispered quietly. He gave her a startled and some what confused look.

"Headmaster. You're a headmaster."

At first he looked incredibly surprised, then his expression softened and he gently swept her hair out of her face.

"You better get some rest, or Rachet will string me up by my toenails." He got up and walked to the (thankfully) human-sized door.

"Wait! Where am I?" He paused and turned to her.

"I thought you would know. You're in your room at the Ark." And he left.

Raven lied back down and pulled the covers tight around herself, shivering despite the warmth.

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Spike entered the Med Bay a few minutes later to find ratchet and Wheeljack hard at work on several different computers. It surprised him because WheelJack was more into tinkering than researching. Rachet, though, didn't surprise him at all.

He jumped ten feet strait up to a ledge beside the nearest computer and sat crosslegged facing the two mechs.

"Well, you were right Rachet. I never would have believed it, but apparently your therory hit the nail right on the head."

The red and white robot turned to him.

"How'd you find out?"

"She knew." He gave the mech a deeply meaniful look. "She knew I'm a Headmaster. Before hand she seeemed to have a vision of some kind and was really out of touch for a minute, then she just suddenly piped up and said, 'You're a Headmaster.'"

Wheeljack whistled. Rachet put his chin in his hand, looking thoughtful.

"Yes, just like I thought. She probably fainted because of a vision too."

Suddenly remembering something Raven had said, Spike spoke up.

"ShadowStriker said she whispered something about 'don't trust the Rat' before she collapsed."

"Yes, he told me." Rachet seemed distracted by the computers, much more than he sould have been. Spike grew suspicious.

"What happened?"

"Another bombing happened, Spike. The Galactic Federations building is gone." Spike simply stared in shock, trying to process that knowledge. It was simply to monumentous to really understand. That building had been earth's connection to the universe for so many years. And it was just gone now. Luckily though, everyone would have been evacuated before the blizzard, so probably no one had died in the Bombing.

"Did they manage to catch who did it."

Ratchet switched off the monitor and said simply, "No." A little too simply, Spike thought.

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Detective Roberts stared at his reflection in the full length mirror. In the back ground he could see the glowing screen of the TV, giving his outline an earthly halo. CNN was on, showing the gruesome footage from bombing.

Roberts grinned evilly at his reflection.

Excellent.

He touched his watch on his wrist, and his image shimmered and changed into a small, human shaped robot. Not a transformer, but a sleek, silver human-made robot.

Roberts face cracked in an evilly tooth leer, giving his almost featureless face a sinister look.

He clicked on his eye-camera and bowed before the mirror, knowing that his master was watching his every move.

"The trail has been laid. They will now follow it to their doom."

_Very good, Rattrap..._

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Somewhere the three hexagonal plates glowed brightly and shattered, revealing three seven-foot robots. They glanced at each other, light blue optics glowing softly.

Evil was rising.

It was time to see out the Key.


	7. Discovery

1"Dude, what a mess..." the giant yellow back-hoe grumbled to itself as it monster-trucked over the rubble of the fallen Galactic Federations building. A large cloud of dust hung thickly in the air like smog, making it hard to see with normal human eyes- or optics for that matter.

Switching to infrared, the back-hoe began to scout the wreckage for any possible hazards or- even though his superiors didn't directly say it- bombs left over that had been sheltered from the first blast with the sole purpose of taking out clean up crews and causing even more collateral damage. Though he hated to admit it to himself, the back-hoe was very afraid of what he might find.

-How's it coming, Towline?-

His intercom crackled to life with the voice of his fellow voyager into the unknown, Wreckage.

Funny, what a fitting name really. Towline had never stopped to consider it before.

-Ugh, my filters are being clogged with all the garbage in the air.-

-I meant; did you happen across anything that the rest of us should be altered to?-

Towline snorted to himself. If he had a face in his Alt-mode, he would have scowled at his friend over the radio waves. Wreckage, contrary to his name sake, was all business. If there was a Transformer equivalent of OCD, Wreckage was the very embodiment of it.

-No, and I'm hoping not to, either. This place is creeping me out Wreckage. Something just doesn't feel right...-

-Spare me, Towline.-

-#$&...-

-What was that?-

-Uh, nothing.-

It had started to snow again. Soft white fakes swirled to the ground through the chocking dust, intensifying the growing feeling of unease in his central processor. As he had been working his way across the debris, an internal network link back at headquarters recorded his progress, making note of the danger levels he calculated along the way on a virtual grid of Ground Zero. Later, the clean up crews would use this 'danger map' they had created to avoid various hazards.

Detecting something unusual on his scanners, Towline veered off course and down a rather steep hill, sliding over loose chunks of cement, his tracks whirling uselessly. The wreckage quickly leveled out at the bottom of the hill, and the sudden change in momentum nearly caused Towline to roll over. Reacting instantly, two cables shot out from his side and wound around a nearby steel bracer, keeping him from tipping completely over. For a moment he rested precariously up on one tread before his enormous weight brought him crashing back down, thankfully upright.

Towline, his energon pump clenching painfully from the sudden fear, withdrew the cables and scanned again for the anomaly he had detected earlier. It was like a faint blot on his CPU, fading in and out.

After a long time internally debating what to do, Towline started up his treads again with a grinding whirl, slowly making his way closer to what ever it was against his better judgement. A part of him knew that he should tell Wreckage, but he was royally pissed off at him at the moment and preferred to let him stew while he went to check it out.

What "it" turned out to be was a robot. Its eyes were blackened holes of soot. The back portion of its head had been torn away, revealing a few dangling wire. It's left arm had been sheared off entirely and was no where in view. Obviously it had been inside of the building when the bomb when off.

But what caught Towline's attention was that it was a human made robot, not one from Cybertron.

Focusing his hidden optics on it for an even closer look he noticed something even odder.

There on it's left shoulder, scorched almost beyond recognition by the bomb, was the purple Decepticon symbol.

-Wreckage, there's something I think you need to see.-

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Raven woke up staring at the ceiling high above her. WAY too high above her, she realized.

"Oh no..." She groaned in dismay, rolling over to get up and accidentally rolling right off the side of the bed, hitting the carpeted floor with a painful thump.

"A wonderful start to what is doomed to be an equally wonderful day." She muttered to herself.

Raven pushed herself to her feet and her stomach grumbled in hunger. She remembered suddenly that she hadn't had anything to eat in nearly three days, and so she decided to seek out some source of food.

"Maybe I better get dressed..." She trailed off happening to realize that she was wearing a pair of blue stripped PJ, wondering who she had borrowed them from this time. Well, they were better fitting and comfier than what she had had on before.

"I'll just skip that until later."

Really not being a morning person at all, she stumbled out into the hallway, breaking into the intense light and blinking sleepily. Choosing a random direction she walked with her eyes half closed until she bumped right into someone. A very large someone. They laughed at her incoherent attempt to apologize.

"S'all right, Kitten. Not a morning person huh?" she nodded. "He, I know that feelin'. Hungry?"

She nodded again.

"I'll take ya where ya can rustle up some grub. Spike should probably be there too. I swear, that boy drinks an ungodly amount of coffee..." a large hand came down gently lifted her high into the air. Raven was too lucid to protest. It placed her on its broad, flat shoulder, keeping the same side hand lightly against her back to hold her steady. Raven yawned widely as they started to walk.

Somehow they made it to the small kitchen, and when Raven came back to full awareness she was sitting at a small table, massaging her eye with her fist.

There was a man standing with his back to her, apparently heating something up in the microwave. When he turned to face her, she instantly recognized him as being the man from the night before. He smiled kindly at her, setting a plate with two steaming waffles in front of her. The smell of them alone began to revive her, and her mouth watered hungrily.

"Well, look who finally decided to get up."

"Ummmm..." was all Raven could manage as a reply. He held up an Aunt Jemima bottle.

"Want some syrup?"

"Mm hmm..." he set it down next to her, and she grabbed it and poured a goodly amount over the warm, golden waffles. He sat down backwards on a chair opposite of her, looking at her with amusement as she hungrily scarfed down the waffles. After a moment he broke the silence between them.

"I think that Rachet- our chief medic- wants to see you after breakfast."

Raven swallowed a large bite. "What for?" the man cleared his throat, then looked at her seriously.

"We think that the reason you fainted was because of a vision."

Raven laughed through the mouthful of waffles.

"Ha. Wike I weely believe wat," she swallowed, and noticing his quizzical look, said, "I can't believe you- or that _Transformer_ for that matter- actually think that all that hocus-pocus crystal ball-gazing is real."

The man, Spike she remembered, stared at her with a look somewhere between weariness

and compassion.

"Raven, do you remember what you said to me last night?" She paused with the fork halfway into her mouth, then put it down with the chunk of syrup-laden waffle still skewered on it, considering the question.

"Uh... Not really, no." He leaned forward towards her, eyes intent, and she leaned back instinctively.

"What about before you fainted? Does the word 'rat' bring anything to mind?"

Raven scowled at him, her fist clenching on her lap at the implication that she was becoming weak minded.

_"No."_

Spike sighed and leaned back again, putting his hands behind his head in a contemplative sort of way. Raven gave him a weird, side long glance, then finished the rest of her breakfast. Suddenly remembering that she was in someone else's PJ's, she tugged thoughtfully at her sleeve, wondering if it would be a good idea to try to give them back, considering her chances were pretty good that they belonged to the man across the table from her. A faint blush sweeped across her pale cheeks.

"Well then, I might as well tell you that another bombing has occurred. You're off the hook kiddo." Raven's heart leapt up into her throat.

"You mean...I can leave?" Again that strange, mildly amused look.

"Yep. As soon as it's cleared by Prime and Detective Roberts, you'll be put into foster care-"

Raven jumped up, knocking her chair over in the process. Pure horror was written in every language across her face.

"NO!" She yelled urgently. A smile tugged at the corners of Spike's lips.

"Really? Cause you know, if it did turn out that you could see things concerning the identity of the bombers, I'm sure that something could be arranged to let you stay and 'fall-through-the-cracks' so to speak..." His voice trailed off suggestively. Raven swallowed the lump that had risen in her throat. It was, of course, back to square one of her original dilemma. Stay, and she could be at the mercy of the Robots. Go into foster care, and she knew what would happen... at least where she was there was the chance that she would not be hurt, as there were other humans involved who would be unwise to offend...

"I still don't remember anything though..." She said after a long while. Spike broke out into a broad smile.

"I'm sure Rachet will be able to help with that."

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-It will be difficult to arrange, but I'm sure all the good will you have built up will make them more inclined to agree to your request-

"Thank you, Detective Roberts. Your advice has been invaluable to us." Prime could almost hear the sniveling man wiping his nose on that insufferable handkerchief again.

-All in a day's work, Prime.- The man answered with his whining voice. Optimus cut the transmition, hopeful that his detest of the man hadn't been as audible as he thought it was. Something about that man just didn't sit right with him, considering how openly helpful and supportive he had been of Prime's plan to take Raven into Autobot custody. At the same time though, it was also reason to give him more respect.

Prime leaned back in his chair, putting his head on his fist. For some reason he couldn't get Raven out of his thoughts. She haunted him constantly, always reminding him of the terrible toll of war. He sighed. Such was life though.

After a moment of internal contemplation, a thought occurred to the great Autobot leader. He switched on his computer and uploaded the security tapes from the previous night, particularly the one of the communications room at the time of Raven's collapse. After a moment of static, her small black-and-white form appeared in miniature on his screen, staring up at the large monitor. He thumbed up the volume as far as it would go.

_Don't trust the rat... _Her image whispered. What did that mean? Prime rewound the tape and kept going back over it again and again until it hit him with the force of a tidal wave.

Flipping on his internal communicator, he hurriedly radioed ShadowStriker.

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Thanks all for the reviews! I know that it's been a while but I"M BACK!

Muwahahahaha...

(P.S.) I'm not sure yet what ShadowStriker will transform into, but I'm torn between a futuristic hover-car and a jet (though that one is pretty cliched, so it will most likely be something different.)


	8. The Gathering Storm

Sorry I know it's been a long time since I last updated, but I've been busy getting my first brown in Tang-su-do and passing finals.

Also, it was hard to submit this chapter as wasmessing with me earlier and kept giving me this "error" message.

Anyway- here's another chapter!

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A midnight black hovercar sped through the freshly plowed city streets, a phantom shadow of gleaming metal alone on the four lane highway that constituted the Ribbon. Though outwardly ShadowStriker appeared coolly emotionless, inside his thoughts raged with inner turmoil. He raced away from the Ark as fast as he could. He raced along the streets, trying to loose himself in the hypnotic sight of snow bank after snowbank flashing past. He tried to outrun his past, but like the intangible ghost of misery that it was, it clung to him and refused to be shaken by mere speed alone.

"Get a grip! You are a warrior, not some soft-hearted, blubbering fool!" ShadowStriker berated himself irritably. Yes, that was it. He was a warrior. A coldly analytical warrior, without feelings or friends. It was safer that way. If you didn't have friends, there was never the chance that you might loose them. If you didn't have a heart, it could never be broken.

Yet all the same, he knew that it was the Decepticon indoctrination talking. Before he had gone turncoat on his former comrades, it was all he had known. Like the ignorant mech he used to be, he accepted those principles without question- until now. There was a saying that understanding bred sympathy, and it certainly appeared to be true now that he knew what it was like to be an autobot. They were by no means as weak as the Deceptions thought them to be. To love as the autobots did was to invite hurt.

Perhaps, in a way, that was what made him a coward compared to them.

And then there was that human, damn it all. If only she was "weak" and deliriously happy! Then he would not feel such a connection to her as he did. Oh no, she had to be just as much of a hard ass as he was.

Primus! He didn't know what to do about her. She was like a little hornet, so small and easy to crush yet possessing a painful sting. Yes, that was it. Shadowstriker felt a little flitter of amusement despite himself. Hornet. It was the perfect nick-name for her.

"Prime to ShadowStriker. Shadowstriker, come in."

Prime? What does he want?

"This is ShadowStriker. Go ahead, commander."

"Return to base immediately. These bombings are more than they appear to be on the surface."

"How do you mean?"

"I have recently received evidence that Rattrap is still alive and at large."

"WHAT!"

Shadowstriker slammed on the brakes, skidding along the highway to a dead stop.

"How can that be? He was killed during the attack by Omega Supreme!"

"Not necessarily. His body was never found. It is entirely possible that he was rebuilt."

"Sir, I think one of the Autobot workshops would have informed us of an unknown spark transfer."

"True, an AUTOBOT would. But what if rattrap was given a different body? What if he was given a robot body that was built by humans?"

Shadowstriker felt his fuel pump seize up, his CPU grinding in incomprehension. Rattrap, alive! That son on a bitch...

"Where is he now sir?" He asked urgently, speeding off again with the sound of screeching tires.

There was only answering silence.

"Sir?"

"I believe," Prime started slowly, "That he is currently disguised as none other than Detective Roberts"

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"Explain to me again WHY I am doing this?" Raven snarled nervously, lying down on the metal slab Rachet indicated to. Spike smiled innocently.

"To help you remember those visions." She shook her head.

"I STILL say you're high on SOMETHING if you think that I'm psychic."

"I would also like to prob the upper parameters of your telepathic abilities." Raven groaned at Preceptor.

"In _english_ please, doctor Spock."

"He means that we want to test your powers." Rachet explained as he attached a lead to her forehead. Raven scruffed at her eye nervously with the long sweat shirt sleeve that she had opted to change into if only to get out of her PJ's. Her heart contracted at a painful speed within her chest, and her nose already had the faith dew of cold sweat on it.

"Brilliant. First I was blackmailed and now I'm being turned into a guinea pig." She grumbled, watching as the two bots in the room moved between various machines around her, attaching different leads to her, one on each arm in the crook of her elbow, one on the side of her neck and three along her brow.

"Just do me a favor; if you DO end up frying my brain, just make sure it kills me- I don't want to be a vegetable the rest of me life."

Spike gave her a weird look.

"I don't think you have anything to worry about. They're very good at this sort of thing."

Raven grunted disbelievingly.

"Alright, just relax now Raven. And hopefully if we've done our job right you won't feel anything except for a moment or two of disorientation." Rachet said placatingly, reaching across to a machine and flipping a switch.

And all went to Hell.

She was gone from the brightly lit room, thrown headlong into a fiery torrent of words, thoughts, and feelings, moaning whispers and sighs of a lustful evil. Images- merely unrecognizable glimpses of objects in the void- flashed by her and around her, worming their way under her eyelids and into her mind. Beautiful things. Sad things. Lonely things. Terrible things. Evil things. Somehow all there at once yet occurring nowhere and no-_when_ near each other. Something so enormously important and overshadowing yet invisibly hidden.

It was coming- no it was there.

It was both

Here. There. Everywhere. Nowhere. Something so big yet so obvious.

Just one little point.

So crucially important.

Just.

One.

And then the whispers started again.

_Gono' dehayd'ay. Na for ogh say'la'dya..._

And she saw the door, the door that stood in its way, locked firmly against it but not for long, the blinding light behind it roving, searching, banging, looking for a crack to get through.

_La' day..._

_La' day..._

_La' day..._

ItwasatthekeyholeandunderthecrackandOHGODTHEREITISITSLOOKINGATME!

YOU.

CAN'T.

SEE.

ME.

I'M.

ALREADY.

DEAD.

Raven bolted upright against the arms holding her down, the all consuming fear that enveloped her exploding out in an earth-shattering scream.

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

"Towline here. What can I do for you, 'Striker?" ShadowStriker looked meaningfully at the image of his friend on the monitor screen.

"Call all the cleanup crews back, Towline. Prime's gotten a whiff of something covert."

"Oh! That reminds me. I found something mighty interestin' that he might want to see."

ShadowStriker shook his head. "Not now, Towline. This is more important." If he were human, ShadowStriker imagined that he would have heard a sharp intake of air from Towline, but instead all the mech did was stand a little straighter, looking nervous. If something was 'important' to ShadowStriker, someone had died or was going to.

"What is it?"

"Now don't go spreading this around. Prime wants to keeps the rumors to a minimum, if you know what I mean."

"I do." Towline said simply, not a hint of his usual joviality present. Something big was going down. It was no time to be cracking jokes.

"Well, from the limited amount of information I've received, something has lead Prime to believe that Rattrap is still alive- in a human built robot body."

Towline looked faintly sick. It was a moment before he responded.

"That bastard." He said softly to himself. Then, more loudly, "Then what I found will interest you. I-I don't really see how he can be, though, ShadowStriker. Or rather, if he _was _somehow still alive, he isn't anymore. We found a human built robot body at ground zero. 'Shadow, this one had a

'con's emblem on it."

It was ShadowStriker's turn to freeze in shock. But...Prime had said that he believed Detective Roberts to be Rattrap in disguise. And if the good detective wasn't dead, it meant Rattrap couldn't be either...could it?

"I'll inform Prime immediately. Be ready to give a full report to him yourself, though." He finally responded.

"Primus, I hope I don't have to. This whole business makes me sick."

"Me too, Towline, me too."

"But you know, something occurred to me, 'Shadow. Why would the guy we're after for the bombings plant a bomb to bring down an abandoned building?"

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_What do you mean 'they're on to me'! Didn't you follow my instructions?_

"Y-yes master" Rattrap, back in robot form, sniveled, his head bowed against the plush apartment carpeting.

_Well then, what went wrong?_

"An unforseen circumstance, Master. The human- Raven Sigil- who is with them now was able to see through my disguise and alerted them to the fact."

_Ah... A human psychic...interesting..._

Rattrap was surprised that his master sounded amused rather than upset.

_Use the controlling device implanted in Teletran 1's CPU distract the Autobots while you capture the girl. Then bring her to me._

"But master! How could one human be of use?"

_SILENCE! YOU WILL DO AS I SAY!_

"Y-yes master." Rattrap quipped dutifully. Hopefully having absolute control over the Ark's main computer would make infiltrating it to retrieve the girl easier than it seemed. After all, it had come in handy in the past.

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

He pressed a button on the side of his chest, his brother's following suit. A greenish- white light enveloped them, and when it faded, three young adult humans stood in their places. He glanced at his brothers- still recognizable despite the holograms- and by and unspoken signal he lead them out from their secret passage into the empty terminal of the subway.

The trains had stopped running because of the blizzard, but that was easy to fix. While his brothers went to patch into the tram's computer, he brought a small metal ball out of the compartment in his chest, pressing in on two of its sides to that it lit up with a blinking red light. Glancing around once more to insure that the terminal was indeed deserted, he tossed it high into the air and it went sailing across the large cavernous expanse, stopping to hover a few inches above the ground near the ticket booth.

Seeing that his brothers were done, he hurried over to them and piled in the now-active tram car. A thick wire shot out from his wrist and attached to the computer console. The doors slid shut of their own accord and the tram shot froward through the tunnel.

Behind them, they distantly heard the sound of the bomb them had planted going off.


End file.
